


Too Late

by ForeverRed



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Falling In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29526531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForeverRed/pseuds/ForeverRed
Summary: Bucky remembers Natalia.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Kudos: 13





	Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Endgame and a mixture of movies, comics, and my own interpretation.

Even after the treatment at Wakanda, Bucky still struggled to remember certain details. Sometimes he had all of the puzzle pieces except for one, and once it was clicked in the whole picture would emerge. But Bucky always struggled, with Steve being the easiest to remember and then everything else. His hardest puzzle by far though belonged to Natalia. There were so few memories that he had of her, and it wasn’t until after Wakanda that he realized they were all of the same woman.

His most detailed memory, and the fondest was when she first called him James. Snow was falling lightly, blending in with the three feet that was already surrounding them. Bucky didn’t know his name was Bucky at this time, and his true name he kept hidden. Except for when he accidentally told Natalia during a night where they had had too much vodka. But she never referred to him by his given name and it was easy to pretend that he hadn’t told her. But on this night, things changed. They were walking back to their safe house, quiet after the mission. It had been rougher than either of them expected, and Bucky could not forget the way the wife’s eyes had looked when she threw herself in front of her child. A futile act, but one that lingered. He continued walking, his footsteps crunching in the snow with hers next to his. Until hers wasn’t. He paused and looked over at her. Her head was bowed, her hair unbound and free now. The curling, rippling red locks falling over her shoulders and obscuring part of her face. Bucky was reminded of how young she was, just nineteen. She had been in the field for years already, a seasoned assassin. But she was still so incredibly young. He waited, a car passing by them and the fingers of his one hand beginning to go numb as he waited for her to say something.

She looked up at him, her eyes shining slightly brighter than usual. “James? Can you sleep next to me tonight?”

His name, his given name, on her lips stole his breath away. And so he simply nodded, watching as she came up to him, her eyes glimmering and thankful.

There were other memories; her red hair damp with sweat as she launched at him with a knife. They were training but her eyes were focused, her hands steady, and if it wasn’t for his metal arm she would have gotten him. When Natalia curved into him, wearing a beautiful green dress that clung to her curves. Her hair was bound and her eyes were shadowed, but a smile twisted her lips as she whispered, “Let’s show them how it’s done.”

Bucky would wake up sometimes covered in sweat, but it wasn’t from a nightmare. He would remember how her lips felt on his, when they were around him. The swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, when she would pant and whisper his given name. There were other nights, where he woke up with tears on his cheeks and Natalia’s face haunted him. She wasn’t smiling, she was sobbing and pounding against iced glass, her face blurry before being ripped away.

He remembered her, and yet he had no idea who she was or what had happened to her. He would see her, traits of her in others. Maria Hill and her fierce tunnel vision as she looked him in the eye and asked if he was loyal to Steve. Wanda when she looked up at him, her eyes round as she wondered if she was a good person. Natasha…Natasha haunted him because she was so similar, gentler but similar. And sometimes she would look at him, as if she were reaching into his soul. He had read the files, and discovered that she had come from the Red Room. But it was years after Natalia and he pushed aside the glimmer of hope that it could be her. But he never could shake the feeling, and when he came back, it still lingered. He saw Clint’s pinched face, the scars of emotion that were etched in his face after seeing his partner die in front of him. He wished he had gotten to know her in the same way he had, or had the excuse of it so that he could validate the deep pain in his chest.

It wasn’t until Clint called Sam and him to help clean out her apartment that he made the connection. He was in her living room, packing up her few items into a box, knickknacks that were decorations to show the appearance of life and care in the space. Behind the hallmark picture he found it, a bullet inside a small blue velvet box. He pulled it out and held it up to the sun, looking at it. And there, on the back was an engraving. It was a mixture of his name and hers…Natalia. They had done it on only one bullet, drunk from vodka and love and sex, to pretend for at least a moment they could belong together. She had tucked it into her bra the next morning, with a wink and a smile, “For safe keeping.” And she had been torn away from him that very night.

His heart buckled, and the world fell away.

She had been right there the whole time.

And he had missed her.


End file.
